1st Edition

Jeremias Drexel's 'Christian Zodiac' Seventeenth-Century Publishing Sensation. A Critical Edition, Translated and with an Introduction & Notes

By Nicholas J. Crowe Copyright 2013

    First published in 1622, Jeremias Drexel's 'Zodiacus christianus' (or 'Christian Zodiac') was a remarkable work of religious iconography and spiritual self-help. Raised a Lutheran but converting to Catholicism in his youth, Drexel (1581-1638) was well placed to publish a book that appealed to Protestants as well as Catholics, his 'Zodiac' appearing in multiple reprints, re-editions and translations across Europe during his lifetime and posthumously across the rest of the seventeenth century in an astonishing arc of popularity. The orbit of his readers' catchment was geographically - and denominationally - wide to a conspicuous degree. Drexel was among the most-read authors of that century, a genuine luminary in the culture of the German Baroque, and arguably the most published writer of the period. Offering the first modern translation into English since the early seventeenth century, this critical edition re-acquaints Anglophone audiences with a sample of the spiritual and philosophical writings of a figure whose significant publication record made him a bestseller during his lifetime and for many decades afterwards. As well as addressing issues of spiritual iconography with relation to 'signs of predestination', the book also has much to say about authorship, publishing and the dissemination of ideas. Including a scholarly introduction, full footnotes and an up-to-date bibliography, this new edition does much to help reveal these themes within the complex interconnections between religion, mysticism, iconography and scholarship in early modern Europe.

    Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Select Bibliography; Chapter 3 A Note on the Text; part A Christian Zodiac; Chapter 4 The First Sign of Predestination:; Chapter 5 The Second Sign of Predestination:; Chapter 6 The Third Sign of Predestination:; Chapter 7 The Fourth Sign of Predestination:; Chapter 8 Fifth Sign of Predestination:; Chapter 9 Sixth Sign of Predestination:; Chapter 10 Seventh Sign of Predestination:; Chapter 11 Eighth Sign of Predestination:; Chapter 12 Ninth Sign of Predestination:; Chapter 13 Tenth Sign of Predestination:; Chapter 14 Eleventh Sign of Predestination:; Chapter 15 Twelfth Sign of Predestination:; Chapter 16 Crown;

    Biography

    Nicholas J. Crowe M.A. (Oxford), Ph.D. (Cambridge) teaches at the Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Studies in Oxford. For twenty years he has taught and researched a wide range of literary and philosophical topics at Oxford, exploring the intellectual history and culture of Britain and Europe from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment.

    'Nicholas Crowe has provided us with a splendid edition of a remarkable figure.' Seventeenth-Century News